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  • Sadly this isn't limited to Australia. RCS the SMS successor does not consider free peering. I believe security is used as an excuse to create a closed ecosystem that surfaces new businesses and therefore innovation.

    For a community of builders, like this, any barrier to entry will be problem, however we'll intend.

    by codingjoe
  • Good move, it's crazy how many scam calls and SMS I receive in Australia. In fact, if I get an SMS or a call, I just assume it's a scam.
    by a_bonobo
  • I welcome this move, enforcing that SMS messages come from who they say they'll come from is important.

    Personally I think the whole system of replacing the point of origin with a name needs to be overhauled. Allowing a name as well is fine, but the practice of delivering messages that can't be replied to is pretty poor.

    Rather than have to futz around with a different number or website to go to, I should be able to just reply "STOP" if (for example) Dominos keep spamming me with Pizza offers I don't want.

    by Nursie
  • In India this has been the regulation for several years, and has helped along with the Do Not Disturb (DND) registration by the end user and rules for senders/callers. Anyone sending bulk SMSes, even if the sending is done through a third party provider like AWS from another country/region, will have to register. [1]

    The entity, the header, content template (which allows two or three variables/placeholders) need to be registered. A Distributed Ledger (DLT) is used to store these. Ad hoc messages without a registered template are expected to be rejected by the telco.

    [1]: https://trai.gov.in/advice-to-senders

    by wtmt
  • Singapore does this. Any message that comes from an unregistered sender show up on the phone with “Likely Scam” as the sender name.
    by JSR_FDED
  • As counter measure to text scams the Australian government (actually ACMA which I think is the Au version of the FCC) has introduced a national register of Sender Ids, which comes in to effect on the 1st of July. It requires providers to mark any unregistered Sender Id as 'Unverified'

    I haven't yet been able to find the full register (if it's even public) but I thought this is an interesting approach.

    by anitil
  • As an Australian, I'm happy to hear this, but also annoyed that a lot of legitimate SMS from companies don't use branded sender ID. I'm not sure why, but my guess is that SMS gateways charge more for it and businesses don't want to pay the extra cent or two.
    by steve_taylor
  • I've yet to read a good explanation of why the telcos permit CLID faking and reinjection of apparently local CLID by overseas inputs.

    I'm assuming there's a technical and/or willpower reason or some counterfactual like VOIP depends on it.

    Even just flagging it would help. Or, rejecting numbers they can know lie inside their own routing architecture, or asserts within their own number plan where the CLID does not match.

    Morally it's like BCP38 in the customer facing internet systems: reject customer input they don't pay you to assert.

    by ggm

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